


screaming in the dark

by Verdantsolstice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Death, F/M, Five Years Later, HEA, Post-TRoS, Sort Of, The Force Ships It, Tros fix-it, fix-it epilogue, i've decided I know how dyads work, textual healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25297447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdantsolstice/pseuds/Verdantsolstice
Summary: Its been five years since Exegol. Its time for Rey's annual pilgrimage back to Ahch-To. Back to the first place where she had felt like she wasn't alone. Maybe this year, the cave would finally show her what she wanted to see.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	screaming in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my favorite group chat for quashing my doubts about this one-shot!  
> Special shoutouts to [beybex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beybex) and [svalewayland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svalewayland) for their input!
> 
> I absolutely should not be working on fics right now - my dissertation is a mess come yell at me to get my butt of the bird app and into academic mode [@alderaanbby](https://twitter.com/alderaanbby)

She’d gone by several names in recent years. Mostly just Rey. She wanted nothing to do with her paternal bloodline, that name was a revolting option. She’d told an old woman on Tatooine that her last name was Skywalker, but later that night it felt wrong, it didn’t feel like  _ her. _ Occasionally people would assume that ‘Skywalker’ was synonymous with ‘Jedi’, and use it when she made a public appearance. As the galaxy rebuilt itself (again), she was somewhat visible, new leaders thought she was an important symbol of hope. She had incrementally recused herself from the job of mascot hero until no one bothered to ask anymore. Even her friends from the Resistance. Finn and Jannah created a rehabilitation program for stormtroopers, they traveled the galaxy trying to heal the wounds caused by the First Order’s conditioning program. Poe was trying to manage the combination of former First Order and Resistance ships. Rose and Kaydel were left to try and raise a new coalition of governing bodies. At least, that was the last Rey had heard. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen any of them in person. 

She herself had been busy. She wanted to explore every corner of the galaxy, occasionally lending assistance as a Force User. Occasionally acting as a masked vigilante rooting out cruel warlords who had come back to power as the First Order had grown. When she donned that mask she was Kira Ren. Although anyone who had seen Kylo Ren would know he was several inches taller than her and broader as well. But in some way she wanted the galaxy to associate the name Ren with goodness, with bravery. Ben Solo had saved her, he had saved everyone and no one knew. The story of the Resistance victory was told in every corner of the galaxy, but no one mentioned how Ben Solo had given everything for the other half of his dyad. 

That was the only name Rey had never used. It was the one she desperately wanted, but she wanted Ben to give it to her, and that future had been taken from her. 

The Falcon wavered violently as it crossed into the lower atmosphere of Ahch-To. Distantly, she heard something crash and hoped it wasn’t a pot of caf she’d forgotten to secure. A winter storm was raging so badly Rey had only the Force to guide the ship down to land in the maelstrom. The ship shuddered as it hit the makeshift landing pad. The Force was loud here. She felt it no matter where she was in the galaxy, but on Ahch-To it was different, sharper, more alive. Rey closed her eyes, breathing it all in. It was not her first visit back to this rock, nor the second, it had become a yearly pilgrimage for her. Ahch-To was the first place where she confronted a truth she had suspected for a long time. It was also the first place she had felt like she wasn’t alone. 

Rey reached for the poncho hanging by the bay door, but changed her mind and left it hanging on the hook. She was drenched within minutes of exiting the Falcon, she could practically hear Chewie’s admonishment and BB-8’s concerned beeps, despite the fact both of them were lightyears away. Her clothes stuck to her as she made her way across the slippery, moss laden rocks. She almost didn’t feel the cold though, her focus was solely on the cave in front of her. 

Despite her yearly visits, the seaweed-crowned maw was still a sinister sight. Over the past five years, she had learned to find balance between the dark and the light sides of the Force - that neither of them could exist without the other, they were a pair - like her and Ben were, should still be. Rey lingered at the edge of the cave and stared into the darkness below. The darkness pulsed thickly around her; drawing her in, telling her that maybe this time it would be different. Maybe this time it would show her what she so desperately wanted to see.

She stepped off the edge and dropped into the icy water below. The water was churning more violently than it had during any of her previous visits, but eventually Rey was able to pull herself up onto the stone shelf, grateful that she had taken time to become a better swimmer since her first visit. The same familiar silence draped over her as she approached the wall that, for the last five years, stubbornly refused to show her the person she wanted to see. Rey reached for the void left by Ben’s death, the place where their bond had once thrummed. The edges of it were still as raw as they had been when he died in her arms on Exegol. She had learned to live with the pain, but it was never far from reach, threatening to drown her. She only let herself feel it fully when she stood in this cave. 

“Show me Ben Solo. Please,” she whispered, then stretched her hand out to touch the damp stone. 

A shadow moved in front of her, its form too blurry to identify before it faded away. 

Rey screamed and pounded her fist against the wall. “SHOW YOURSELF! Talk to me! You told me I wasn’t alone!” a sob tore from her throat as she let herself collapse against the unforgiving rock. Leia and Luke appeared to her when she visited Tatooine, but Ben never came back. He vanished on that wasteland of a planet and left her alone. “Everyone leaves,” she said quietly as she sank to the floor. 

When Ben told her they were a dyad, and she felt the truth of it in her bones. They were two that were one. And when he came for her on Exegol, she saw their future laid out in front of them, but then it was cruelly snatched away. And she was expected to carry on without him. Anyone that would have remotely understood her pain was gone. She was alone. Worse than that, her soul had been torn apart. 

Every year she came back to this stupid forgotten planet, thinking maybe this time Ben would appear to her, that she could see him again. They hadn’t even gotten a chance to say anything before he died. She didn’t tell him how she felt. He knew, but she wished she had said the words. He deserved to hear them. He deserved so much more. Another ugly sob rose in Rey’s throat. She buried the worst of her grief, it was the only way she knew how to survive. But here, on Ahch-To, where she remembered the color of Ben’s eyes in the firelight and the warmth of his fingers against hers, here, she let it all out. She cried for the boy who had only wanted someone to hear him. She cried for the man who had risen from the ashes and killed his abuser. She cried for the future she had tasted before it slipped through her fingers. 

The tears continued to cascade down her face, mixing with the drying salt water. Her face felt crusty but she couldn’t find it in her to wipe her cheeks. She couldn’t find the energy to move. She was so tired. So tired of feeling this wound she couldn’t heal. So tired of being alone. 

So when the roar of an incoming wave filled the cavern, Rey didn’t move.

A monstrous wave broke on the shore, sending a deluge of water down through the opening of the cave. The cascade seemed endless, bringing down seaweed and loose rocks alike. At the same time, water was flooding in from openings beneath the surface. Water was crashing in from every direction, the cavern was quickly filling up. Perhaps it would be permanently lost to the frigid waters of Ahch-To. 

Rey let the water take her. Another forgotten relic swallowed by the island.

____________________

Before she could even open her eyes, Rey coughed up what felt like an entire ocean. 

“You didn’t even fight it! What the hell is the matter with you?!” came an angry voice above her head. 

After pulling in several lungfuls of air, Rey opened her eyes, blinking against the salt that had blurred her vision slightly. A large figure loomed over her, she was aware of hands on her shoulders and it felt like her head was cradled in someone’s lap.

“You just gave up! Like your life didn’t even matter anymore - what were you thinking?”

Eventually her vision cleared and she gasped, choking again, but it didn’t matter, not when her heart had suddenly been made whole. 

“Ben!” Rey spun to sit up, ignoring the dizziness and flung herself at the figure in front of her. 

Ben landed on his back with a muffled “oof” as she half laughed half cried into his neck. One of his arms banded around her waist and his other hand settled on the back of her head as a fresh wave of tears came over her. 

“You came back, you came back,” she repeated again and again as Ben pulled them into a seated position. He arranged her legs so she was straddling his lap. Rey wrapped herself around him, she would never let go again. 

“Rey, sweetheart...I didn’t come back.”

Confused, Rey leaned back so she could look at his face. He looked good, no more bruises or cuts, even his clothes were in better shape, but his eyes were sad as he pushed her wet hair away from her face. 

“But…” for the first time, Rey took in her surroundings. They weren’t in the cave, they weren’t even on Ahch-To. It was dark, darker even than wild space, theren’t weren’t any stars in the sky or any way to differentiate between land and horizon. “I died. Am I dead?” She didn’t know how to process that fact. Death had never been far from her mind. It had loomed over her life on Jakku. It only took one misstep inside the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, one wrong turn in the desert, and the planet would eat you alive. She’d taken more risks since the battle of Exegol. She’d gotten into more back alley fist-fights, and provoked more gang lords than she knew was smart. She knew Death had been waiting in the wings, but to finally succumb was something else entirely. 

“Why didn’t you fight it, Rey? You just let the water take you, you didn’t even try,” his voice was distraught. He chewed on the inside of his lip as if he had any right to be sad she died. 

Suddenly, Rey was angry. She punched his shoulder, hard. “You did it first, you moof-milker. You left! You told me I wasn’t alone and then you LEFT.”

“I couldn’t let you go, not when I could save you.”

“You didn’t let me save you! I spent the last five years with half of my soul GONE. You didn’t even visit. No Force Ghost, no dreams, nothing,” her voice broke. 

Then for the first time since Exegol, she felt their bond flare to life. She felt the depth of his regret, his pain, his love. She felt every emotion he went through in his last moments. Rey gasped as it washed over her. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wasted so much time. I wanted to stay with you, but there wasn’t much of me left. I’m sorry.” Tears were streaming down his face. “Everything I had was yours. Everything I am belongs to you.”

Rey was crying again as she cupped his face and kissed him like she did on Exegol. But this time she was fierce, five years of grief fueled her as she moved her lips against his. She tasted the salt of their tears and something that was uniquely Ben. Something that tasted like home. 

Eventually she pulled back. His eyes were still shining as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “But why didn’t you visit?”

“I tried, Rey, believe me, I tried, but I could never get through. I hit a wall every time. At first, I thought maybe you were keeping me out.”

Rey felt a pang in her stomach as he relived the heartbreak of that thought. That she was purposefully keeping him away. “No, no I wasn’t. I waited, I kept going back to the cave on Ahch-To hoping to find you.”

“I know, I could see you. But never clearly enough, you were just a shadow, a vague shape but I knew it was you,” he reached up and ran a thumb across her cheekbones before dropping his hand to her thigh, “After a while I realized I couldn’t find you because I don’t think this is really death.”

Rey’s brow furrowed, “but you disappeared, I  _ felt  _ it. The bond severed after I felt you die.” She shivered as she relived the worst day of her life. 

“I think, I think maybe I couldn’t really die while you were still alive. That maybe one half of a dyad can’t truly die while the other lives. I think this is the World Between Worlds.” Ben gestured to the darkness around them. 

“That’s mentioned in the Jedi texts, but no one could prove its existence.” 

“Ahsoka Tano did.”

“Who?”

Ben smiled, “she was a friend of my grandparents. All of them, actually. While I was searching for the holocron I came across her accounts of her experience on Lothal. She walked through this place to avoid being killed by Anakin Skywalker after his turn to the darkside.”

Rey considered him for a moment, he probably had little else to do but think about what had become of him. “But if I died in that cave, then shouldn’t we both have….passed on by now?”

“I don’t know,” Ben’s arms tightened around her. “Truthfully, I’m just glad of the chance to see you again. Whatever happens next.”

Rey moved to kiss him again, but a bright light appeared to her left. Startled, they both turned. Rey detangled herself from Ben (who looked a little put out at the loss of contact). Then reached down a hand to help him up. She didn’t let go, even after he was standing.

The light flickered then opened to reveal...the Falcon? 

“That’s where I left the ship on Ahch-To,” curious, Rey took half a step forward before another light appeared behind them. 

As one, they turned. This doorway didn’t appear to lead to a planet, just more darkness. Rey looked between the two doors. 

“I think we’re being given a choice,” said Ben, looking down at Rey. “We can either go back, or continue...beyond.”

Rey considered Ben for a moment, she felt a gentle caress through the bond and knew he’d follow her whichever door she chose. She let the warmth of the bond wrap around her. It felt like stepping into the sun after spending five years in the shade. She smiled and moved closer to Ben. He knew what she was after and wrapped his arms around her, “whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“I’ve spent years waiting without ever really living. I just want to be happy. I want a life, and I want it with you,” Rey rested her chin on his chest so she could look up at him. 

Ben smiled down at her, “Lead the way."


End file.
